


If You're Determined Enough

by Visardist



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:44:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visardist/pseuds/Visardist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt ‘Mako wanted a little kitten. While visiting the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Mako expresses this to Stacker and the Weis hear. They end up smuggling three kittens into the ‘Dome for her.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You're Determined Enough

It didn’t really start in Hong Kong. It started in Vladivostok. Mako, as so often happened when she had finished her homework and Marshal Pentecost was too occupied with Important Goings On, was allowed to wander the Shatterdome. She was old enough to know to knock before entering, in case of interrupting dangerous or otherwise private actions, and everyone knew her face. (And height that was so uncommon in the ‘Dome. And curious voice that picked up their own languages so charmingly.)  
  
So when she knocked at the door of An Yuna’s room, and a voice called out in Korean to come in, she was expecting only the pilot, or maybe her co-pilot as well. They could talk about swords (though rapiers were pretty far from the kind of swords her father made) and about what fighting in a Jaeger was like and sometimes So-Yi would divert them into talking about handsome pop stars, insisting that Mako ‘be culturally aware enough to keep pace with her peers’. (Or at least that’s what Mako roughly translated it to. PPDC pidgin varied from ‘Dome to ‘Dome, and though she’d lived in them all for at least a month or so, she was still getting the hang of it.)  
  
But there, all squeezed on the tiny bed, were not only the pilots of Nova Hyperion but the huge husband and wife of Cherno Alpha. All were bent towards the center of the bed, except Yuna, who had looked up to see Mako enter. She peeled away a little, making space for the younger girl. “Come here. We have a new staff member to help in our fight.”  
  
The new staff member mewed up at Mako as she squeezed in between Yuna and Sasha Kaidanovsky. Never had Mako seen such a soft, gentle expression on the fierce woman, and in her astonishment it took a bit to realise that Sasha’s husband was likewise gentled, dangling a feather for the little kitten to bat at.  
  
"This is Peopeu," Yuna said, as Mako cautiously held out a hand to stroke its fur. "I found it yesterday-"  
  
” _We_  found it yesterday-“  
  
"All right,  _we_  found it yesterday,” Yuna corrected herself, adding an eye-roll for her co-pilot (who mirrored it without looking), “while we were exploring the city, and it just seemed so pitiful that we  _had_  to take it in. Isn’t it sweet?”  
  
Mako nodded vigorously, even as Aleksis snorted and rumbled (softly, so as not to spook the kitten), “It is not going to be puffy forever. Better it be called Belizna. It will grow big and strong.  _And_  is more unisex.”  
  
This was apparently an argument they’d been having since yesterday, as So-Yi leaned over and said, “We’re calling it both. Peopeu Belizna, two names like a Jaeger.”  
  
"It will save us their bickering," Sasha added, scooping Peopeu Belizna up in both hands, "and there is nothing wrong with a feminine name, besides." The kitten meeped at Mako, and nipped at her nose as it was held close enough. Mako sneezed, and in that moment fell in love with the kitten. (It was later confirmed to be male, which left Aleksis looking triumphant for at least a week until Yuna swapped his meal tray for the worst-tasting gruel this side of Anadyr.)  
  
Mako spent the rest of that stay utterly enchanted by Peopeu Belizna, and working up the courage to ask Marshal Pentecost for a kitten of her own. At last, once she’d packed her little suitcase and finished her breakfast, and she and the Marshal were walking side by side to the plane that would take them to Hong Kong, she pressed her lips together and nodded to herself. Now or never.  
  
"Sensei, if- if it is possible, could I have a kit-" She was cut off by the sound of the Kaiju alarm, and the moment was lost. She did remember, though, that he had turned to her, attentive as always. So surely that boded well.  
  
It wasn’t until they were getting off their much-delayed flight and Mako was coming down from the enthralment of watching Cherno Alpha and Nova Hyperion in action that she remembered her request. Now that they weren’t distracted by imminent death by giant sea lizard from another dimension, she asked him again, and managed the full question this time.

So it was that Hong Kong Shatterdome’s first sight of Mako’s return was that of a disappointed young girl and her regretful foster-father. There were frowns as they passed, and murmurings and mutterings as ears strained to find the reason for this disappointment without being too obvious in their straining.  
  
"It just wouldn’t be fair to the creature," the Marshal was saying to her. "We travel so often, it wouldn’t have time to get used to anywhere. It’d need consistent veterinary care, too."  
  
"I could  _find_  vets,” Mako said stoutly. “For every ‘Dome. And I could train it to be used to travelling and to the general layout of a ‘Dome. If I get the kitten young enough, it couldn’t be so hard.”  
  
He shook his head, and every eye in the corridor followed that shake. “If you get it young enough, it won’t be able to travel. We’re only here for two weeks, Mako.” Seeing the way her expression crumpled, he said gently, “maybe you ought to think about finding good vets. If you can prove each place we travel to has someone trustworthy to take care of its health, you can have a cat.”  
  
That should cover things for a while, he thought as she lit up. Nine Shatterdomes with two weeks each was plenty of time either to disabuse her of the notion or prove herself determined enough.  
  
Of course, he didn’t count on the Wei triplets.  
  
—-  
  
Very early on in their career as Jaeger pilots, the three Weis had worked out that they attracted less attention apart than together. One bald young man  _might_  be a Wei, but three identical bald young men? They likely didn’t even have to have their own face so long as it was one face.  
  
And they  _had_  been planning to go out that afternoon, anyway.  
  
So they each got their motorcycles, agreed on what they were supposed to retrieve, and left the Shatterdome in separate directions.  
  
Hu and Jin went to get their manhwa and the snacks the mess hall didn’t stock, as agreed.  
  
Cheung disregarded their beloved sports drinks and headed straight for the nearest pet shop Google Maps could inform him of. Having secured a description of Peopeu Belizna from his boyfriend in the Vladivostok ‘Dome (for Mako’s wish had to have been inspired by something), he went directly for the smallest, fluffiest, whitest kitten they had. There followed a brief period of internal debate- the kitten with a black spot on its nose was much fluffier, but the whitest kitten was smaller and might grow a fluffier coat. But then the kitten that was middlingly fluffy and with a grey spot on its ear nudged his hand, and it was decided.  
  
And then, because he was Responsible and Helpful and many other things, he allowed the shopkeeper to take him around the shop and recommend him things that any growing kitten might need (or more likely want, given the perilous way his bike tilted once it had all been loaded up). Recommended also were several very good vets, which fulfilled the Marshal’s requirement at least for this ‘Dome. (He’d lean on his boyfriend to help for Vladivostok.)

Jin dutifully loaded up on their haw flakes and dried mango and other snacks, and- remembering Cheung’s face the last time he and Hu emptied the jar- added another packet of haw flakes to the basket. One day they would have to wean their older brother off those.  
  
He thought over that last thought, then put the extra packet back. One day didn’t have to be so far in the future, and they needn’t indulge themselves.  
  
He thought over it again, and put the other packet back. Dried plums and mango would do. They could manage cold turkey.  
  
The old woman raised an eyebrow as she totted up the packets. “No haw flakes? You want Nai Nai to go bankrupt, is it? Tt, and how do you think you’re going to pilot if you don’t eat anyway. Is this a diet? Boys are not supposed to go on diets some more, it’s not healthy. Go, get your haw flakes.”  
  
There was a minor glaring stand-off before he caved to the woman who was as good as a grandmother to the three of them and dutifully went back and got three packets of haw flakes. She added them to the total and told him the price, not at all smiling triumphantly. Certainly not. Too undignified for an old woman.  
  
Still, he figured he had earned her good graces even with this minor disagreement. Sliding the money across the counter, he asked, “anyone’s cat had an unwanted litter lately?”  
  
That got him even higher an eyebrow raise than the lack of haw flakes, so he hurried on before she said anything cutting. “It’s a present for a girl I know,” the words stumbled out, and from the way her eyes sharpened so viciously gleeful, he knew he had picked the wrong words.  
  
"A  _girl_ ,” she repeated, drawing out the syllable with distinct pleasure. “Ah, it’s about time! A handsome boy like you- you are Jin, aren’t you? Good, good. Cats are very  _forward_ presents, but you’ve taken long enough about it. Got to catch up with your brothers.” She reached up and pinched his cheek.  
  
All in all, Jin considered when he escaped at last with directions to Nai Nai’s neighbour’s kid’s kittens, the deception was pretty worth it.

—-

He also considered, kitten tucked into his jacket for safety on the way back, that perhaps he should have discussed the matter with his brothers beforehand. Because there, puttering up to the ‘Dome gates and looking rather like a travelling tower, was his brother with what seemed to be the contents of a pet shop. That was definitely a pet carrier tied to the top of the pile, though once he’d parked his bike, it became clear that Cheung hadn’t risked it and had done the same as him.  
  
He sighed and pulled the striped little thing out, carrying the snacks in his other hand and not at all bothering to help Cheung unload. “Maybe the Marshal won’t mind if she has two kittens.”  
  
"Three," Cheung corrected, getting the pet carrier down and putting his kitten inside by virtue of it not realising that was where it was being put. It yowled like anything once it realised it wasn’t being warmed and held any more, and to Jin, his kitten seemed to fluff up and become a little smugger. "Knowing Hu, it’s three. And he’ll have gotten  _his_ kitten to her already, by the looks of it.” And it looked like he was right; the third bike was already parked.  
  
Thus it was with cautious balancing of Cheung’s purchases, trivial bickering from the lack of sports drinks among said purchases, and mutual disappointment at having been beaten to the target that they made their way to Mako’s room to offload the pet food, toys, and sundry other objects. After all, as Jin had said optimistically, “Hu  _can’t_  have gone as overboard as you, Ge Ge.” (Which would have earned him a twist of the ear had Cheung the hand to spare, but as it was, became worth only a small kick in the shin.)  
  
Mako’s room was empty.  
  
That wasn’t unusual, so they offloaded the goods as planned, removed Cheung’s kitten from its carrier, and set out in search of her. And hopefully also their brother.  
  
Rather worryingly, the nearest person to know Mako’s whereabouts told them that she and Hu were in the infirmary. They sped up their pace accordingly, each privately reasoning that Hu couldn’t have gotten into  _that_  much trouble while apart from them.  
  
Probably.  
  
Hopefully.  
  
They’d gotten into plenty of trouble apart before; this couldn’t be much worse.  
  
All right, it could.  
  
Simultaneously, their quick walk turned into a jog turned into a flat out sprint-  
  
turned into falling face-first on the floor while protecting their kittens when a streak of something came down the corridor, thin enough to be right between them, yet tripping them up all the same.  
  
They both looked up at the prim blue shoes of Mako, stumbling to a stop before them. “Did Sobo get away?”  
  
"If Sobo is the bit of lightning that just went by, yes," Cheung said, carefully getting on his knees and speaking slowly. His lip felt terribly tender. "But it’s okay. Here, have another one while we go catch Hu’s girlfriend’s spawn." He held out the white kitten with its grey-spotted ear. It meowed as fetchingly as it could, looking up at Mako with its big green eyes.  
  
"I’m going to tell him you said that," Jin sniffed- or tried to, but there was blood dripping from one nostril. "Ugh." He wiped at it with one hand, holding out his brown-and-black-striped kitten. It was marginally bigger than Cheung’s, but it made up for it by delicately grooming itself rather than putting itself forward for Mako’s attention.  
  
She looked back and forth between the two kittens, eyes widening, and did not move forward to take either of them.

They followed her into the infirmary, feeling more than a little let down by her reaction. She hadn’t taken either kitten, instead gnawing her lip as she looked at both with her hands twisted in her skirt. They’d hastily salvaged the awkward silence by rising to their feet and asking her where Hu was.

Hu, it turned out, was (still) being patched up from his apparently heroic rescue of the cat Mako had named Sobo. It really was impressive; he was reading one of the manhwa he’d bought at arm’s length, allowing the nurse to tend to the claw marks all over his arms. His head was thoroughly and enthusiastically (over) bandaged. Even his jacket bore the shredding of an upset cat.

He also looked rather resentfully at the kittens his brothers were holding. “Where did you even find them so young? I got mine  _small_  but not as small as that.”

“I went to a pet shop,” Cheung said.

“I asked Nai Nai for help and got directions to a recently pregnant cat. Also, Cheung said that your cat is your girlfriend’s spawn,” Jin said, winking at Mako. Hu growled at their older brother, only kept in place by the nurse’s sharp words. Cheung lifted his eyes to the ceiling, projecting innocence for all he was worth. Mako, who privately considered Leidian a reasonably nice person if often cranky, tried not to think about the number of things in common she did have with Sobo. In that short time of having the cat, there were already enough that she needed both hands to count.

It eventually came out that Hu had not sought out human help of any kind, excepting that he had asked where stray cats might be found. For his troubles, he found not an actual kitten but the smallest stray he could, hoping that it would also be the youngest. (At this point in the retelling, he had to pause while his brothers laughed long and loud and derisive. There was simply no way to talk over them both, and even Mako was hiding a smile of her own.)

Unfortunately for Hu, the smallest stray had also been one of the meanest, thus his war wounds. Getting back to the Shatterdome had been an exercise in patience and the most careful steering of his life, as Sobo made its dislike for motorcycles and traffic in general very clearly known.

Hu completed his tale looking distinctly aggrieved, especially as Jin’s striped kitten had endeavoured to endear itself to him by helpfully licking at his bandaged side. Though none of them voiced it in front of Mako and the nurse (who was grinning hugely as she patched up the last of his claw marks), they all three of them understood his grievance quite clearly: why were Cheung and Jin’s cats so much more sweet-tempered?

They also all three of them understood the answer: because we weren’t stupid enough to get Mako-chan a dirty alley cat, dumbass.

Mako, finding that the kittens offered her were much less likely to scratch, now had picked up both in her hands. After determining that no, Hu would not like to hold one of them to soothe his temper, she set one on each shoulder, gave them half a minute to get settled, and the four of them set out to secure Sobo. Sobo, so named because, Mako said, of its expression just like her grumpy grandmother. (Not to be confused with her  _nice_  grandmother, whom she referred to as Obaa-chan. None of them asked why she did not dignify the grumpy grandmother with so much as an Obaa-san.)

It was fortunate that Sobo left behind such a distinctive trail. While it hadn’t knocked over or damaged any _thing_ , there were several any _ones_  who had come away for the worse in their encounters with the cat. More than one person nodded knowingly at Hu’s bandages and told them where ‘that cat’, ‘the furry Kaiju’, or ‘the lightning devil’ had gone. (This last made Cheung bite back a hysterical giggle while Hu grimaced at Jin, who winked again at Mako, who just looked round at all three of them in confusion.)

They traced the trail from the infirmary to the mess hall to LOCCENT to the garage to K-Science (escaping Leidian’s indignance only because Sobo was still on the loose, though they all silently agreed that Hu was  _in for it_  later). All over the Shatterdome, the cat had gone. Finally, hearing yowling and low worried voices, they arrived at the Jaeger bays.

Probably it should have occurred to at least one of them that they hadn’t bumped into the Marshal even in LOCCENT.

Unfortunately, the odds being against them, none of them had that thought, and so they scrambled to a stop at the sight of the Marshal and several of Crimson Typhoon’s technicians gathered around the Jaeger’s huge foot, where Sobo was perched at thrice the height of the tallest person present. Said person was securing her harness to climb up and get it down.

Sobo was squalling, hideously, piteously, and above all, loudly, at its misfortune.

There was a pause as Mako and the triplets assessed the situation. All the attention was on Sobo, and their presence was as yet unacknowledged.

“If we leave now, maybe we can pretend we have nothing to do with it,” Jin whispered. Cheung nodded in agreement, but Mako pursed her lips.

“No, that’s not right,” Mako said, stepping forward. “Especially not after Hu went to so much trouble.” Cheung and Jin, behind her, shot each other despairing looks, while Hu absolutely did not hide his smugness in the least.

Yue was halfway up when Marshal Pentecost felt a tugging at his hand. “Excuse me, Sensei. We must apologise.” Everyone turned to look at the young girl with the serious face of one aware that she was in trouble and ready to own up to said trouble. Their gazes naturally went to the kittens on her shoulders, each endeavouring to look as tooth-achingly sweet as possible, then behind her to the three men- no, boys really, the way they looked so guilty- then narrowed to the most beat up of the lot.

Almost as one they looked back up at the yowling cat.

The Marshal looked from the cat to Mako to the triplets and back to Mako again. He sighed heavily, his halfway deepest sigh, which laid hope that things were perhaps not so dire after all. “Did you ask them to get cats for you?”

“No, Sensei. But I should apologise, because I let Sobo escape. And now it is stuck up there, and we have the trouble of getting it down.” She held his gaze steadily, determined not to let any of the blame escape her. “So it is my fault, for wanting a kitten and causing things to end up like this.”

“No, it’s our fault,” the triplets said in unison. As if they were really going to let Mako martyr herself for only cats.

“We all heard your conversation, and we thought that Mako-chan shouldn’t have to wait to get a cat,” Cheung continued, speaking for all of them as the eldest. “But we didn’t tell each other this, so we all got cats separately. And since Hu was  _really set_  on getting a cat that acted like his girlfriend-” (“Hey!”) “he got that cat there.” He scrabbled in his jacket for the list, neatly dodging Hu’s elbow. “ _But_  I have a list of reliable veterinarians here in Hong Kong, sir. So whichever one Mako-chan chooses, your condition is fulfilled for this ‘Dome.”

He let that settle for a beat before adding, “also, I have already provided whatever the cat might need. Food, bed, litter, everything.”

He did his level best not to smirk; he knew his brothers could feel it anyway.

Yue, paused within arm’s length of Sobo, called down, eying Hu’s bandages apprehensively, “so do I get this one down, Mei Mei? That tabby seems much nicer. We can let this one get down by itself next time a Kaiju turns up.”

Mako turned her best and most beseeching eyes on the Marshal. The triplets followed suit, but being years older, couldn’t match even half of Mako’s power put together. “Please, Sensei? I will care for- for all three cats. I will! Cheung and Hu and Jin worked so hard to find these cats for me, and I will absolutely find good vets in Lima before we go there! I promise!”

(As one, the triplets stifled a proud sniffle. Mako-chan was so nice.)

The Marshal looked back up at Sobo again, and down at the tabby kitten, and the white kitten with its grey spot. His sigh this time was only a quarter his deepest. “You have thirteen days to prepare them for travel, Mako. By the time we leave, any cat that isn’t litter-trained or won’t go into the carrier will have to stay here.”

He was rewarded with Mako’s most brilliant smile, and not at all surreptitious fist pumps from the triplets.

(“Oi! Do I have to get this one down or not? It looks like it’s going to eat my hand if I touch it.”)

**Author's Note:**

> The teeny other half of the joke about Sobo and Leidian is that Leidian means ‘thunder and lightning’, so Sobo’s not being connected to her just for temperament.
> 
> I tried to find alternative characters for her name. I really did. But this time around the punny name ended up being not punny and just being odd.


End file.
